Pictures

World Champions!!!! DH and the boys had fun watching the finals over the internet.
I was lucky to get close enough to a turquoise browed mot-mot to get a decent picture. We see them on a daily basis in our neighborhood.
The hills are so ready for the rainy season. We've had a couple of showers and there is more green in the scenery, but most of the plants are on the crispy side.

Yes, I'm here, too. To get my picture taken I have to take a tripod and shoot it myself.

Art

I took the boys to an art class Saturday morning a week ago. They weren't too excited, especially Tuomas who is hyper-critical about his work and usually refuses to do anything since he knows that it will never look perfect or at least the way he wants it to look. But they don't do much art at school nor at home, and I want them to try to do something artsy and creative.

A wonderful couple take turns in teaching the kids and this time the theme was to make musical instruments of colored paper. Once Tuomas got the hang of it he said he enjoyed it.

This week's Saturday I took the very reluctant two younger boys to class again to paint a picture of penguins. Again a very difficult start for Tuomas, but again he said that he quite enjoyed it. Go figure!! We left the penguins there to dry, so I'll post a picture later.


Jaakko's guitar and drums.
Tuomas' electric guitar.

Cats

One afternoon after basketball practice we took one of the students back to his home. The boys got out of the car and immediately found two kittens in the yard. They were tiny little creatures, with crusty eyes due to infection and the other one had been thoroughly licked by the family's dog. Apparently it wasn't the first time somebody had thrown unwanted kittens over their fence and they didn't really care for them; the coatis would take care of them unless they'd die of dehydration during the night.

But I wanted to rescue them! I called a couple of friends trying to get a hold of the people who take rescue cats, but was unsuccessful. It was getting late and we had to go home, but I didn't want to leave the kittens. DH wasn't too happy about having the kittens in the car with no plans about their future. Luckily our neighbor finally said that I could bring them over for the night and she'd take them to a friend of hers the next morning.

We washed them, put some medicine in their eyes and gave them milk and food. The other one ate a lot, but the other one was exhausted after a few bites. The future didn't look too bright for that one.

To my relief they both survived the night and after first being named Laurel and Hardy they have now been re-named Ben and Jerry by the woman to whom our neighbor took the kittens. She already has nine cats and can't keep Ben and Jerry, but has a hard time giving them to anyone else!

Maquenque

The boys had a week vacation around Easter and we wanted to make a small trip. And besides the beaches get really crowded around Semana Santa, so it was either staying at home or leaving town.

A friend of ours recommended a small, family-owned lodge close to the Nicaraguan border. This time we made sure to take two batteries for the camera!

All things packed in the car (with the excitement of finding a leaking pipe in our storage room the night before) we hit the road leaving iPods and PSPs home. We did take our computer, but ended up not using it at all, since the lodge had no internet connection. Mobile phones didn't work there either. Risto packed a couple of board games and books.

We had driven the road to Arenal, our half-way point, the year before. Then the sky had been overcast and it had rained. This time the weather gods were friendly. We saw the volcano in all its glory.
Before Arenal we made a stop to have a snack and because Jaakko was feeling nauseous. A year ago he had recycled his toffee-filled doughnut in the car. This time he got out of the car to recycle some nachos. The road around Arenal lake is really winding, and I guess DH can't help his Finnish rally-driving genes hitting in. Maybe the third time driving to Arenal we remember to drive slowly and not to feed Jaakko anything!

From Arenal we continued past La Fortuna to Pital where we took the gravel road towards the Nicaraguan border and Maquenque lodge. The road was lined with hibiscus and dracaena hedges.
And behind the hedges were vast fields of pineapples.
I had to take a closer look to see if there were tin cans of pineapple hidden inside the plants.

After five hours of driving, the last 45 km taking the last hour, we arrived at the parking place of the lodge. We were picked up from there and taken on a boat across the river to the lush and tranquil premises. The rainforest was full of different sounds, birds flying in the garden. A paradise.
The water here is not the river, but a lagoon. The main building with the restaurant is on the left and you can see a few of the cabins on the right.
The cabins did not have a wall all the way up to the roof, but a meshed section of about 1 m tall. You could hear the sounds of the jungle all through the night. And the other guests could hear Jaakko wake up 5:15 the first morning full of rage because nobody wanted to play Monopoly with him. We had played it for the first time the night before and he was all into real estate and demanded a replay immediately!

This was the view from our balcony. We did go on a canoeing trip there with the boys. Just the thing Indiana Jones would do!

The full moon over the lagoon. With a flashlight you could get the eyes of the caimans shine like two diamonds. The first morning we went on a three hour guided walk in the rain forest and learned a lot about the plants and animals.
Izzy-Lizzy was kind enough to stay still so I could come closer and take a picture. Most of the birds were not as polite and it was frustrating to fiddle with my camera and try to take a picture in decent focus.
Tuomas spotted this lizard hiding next to a bush.
Emerald Basilisk basking in the sun.
This one is called the Jesus Christ Lizard since it can walk on water.

We started in the medicinal plant garden seeing in addition to numerous interesting medicinal plants
vanilla,
Ylang-ylang,
filipita banana which according to our guide grows faster and taller than bananas.
The colours, shapes and smells of the plants were amazing. And quite a few of them I remembered seeing in flower shops in Finland! This one, as far as I understand, is the Heliconia mathiasiae.

Our family on the rain forest walk. The tree behind us had a beautiful monkey ladder vine growing on it.

A closer look of the escalera de mono.
I was told that this one is a brown vine snake. First of all it's green and it doesn't look like the brown vine snake I googled. More importanly, it stayed put for a long time for me to take a picture!! And it wasn't poisonous nor aggressive.
Risto and Tuomas looking at a walking palm.
Fruit of Apeia membranacea that monkeys use to scratch themselves with.
A Green and Black Poisonous Dart Frog. It was difficult to take pictures in the quite dark forest with three, small, blond heads in front of the camera lens and usually making enough of movement and noise to scare all the critters away. I hate photos that are not in focus.
Tuomas trying to do as the native indians did, i.e. burn the fluffy stuff containing the seed of the balsa tree. The natives used the burning balsa fluff to transfer fire from place to place.

After relaxing in the pool after lunch we decided to go on a night walk after dinner. Due to the full moon most of the predators, i.e. poisonous snakes, were hiding. It would have been interesting to see the deadliest snake, Fer de Lance, but maybe it was a good thing that we didn't. We saw the eyes of the caymans shine in the lagoon, interesting fire flies,
a Central American Smooth Gecko,
another frog,
a cicada molting.

The next morning we went canoeing in the lagoon, and afternoon was spent on a boat cruise on the Rio San Carlos. A lot of birds,
a huge iguana,
a turtle,
bambu.

We stopped at Boca San Carlos, a stone's throw away from Nicaragua. The boys had a chat with the local policia
We walked through the village
spotting a cacao tree on our way to
the high-school. But what really made the whole trip worth wile in the boys' opinion was this
A crocodile!

The highlight in my opinion was my 1.5 hour bird watching tour the last morning. I spotted (with the help of my guide, and only due to the help of my guide) 24 different species. Again, not having good binoculars nor decent lens for photographing birds was slightly annoying, but I did see scarlet macaws fly right above me!

We learned a lot about the nature during our short stay!